Lafourche plans ad campaign

Wednesday

Apr 10, 2013 at 8:12 PM

Local officials are hoping a blitz of advertising will attract vacationers to Lafourche Parish.“We want to get people while they are planning a vacation,” said Julie Barrilleaux, the parish’s special projects coordinator.

Xerxes WilsonStaff Writer

Local officials are hoping a blitz of advertising will attract vacationers to Lafourche Parish.“We want to get people while they are planning a vacation,” said Julie Barrilleaux, the parish’s special projects coordinator.Lafourche this year received a $500,000 grant to continue marketing efforts aimed at mitigating the lingering concerns after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The parish originally received $2.1 million from BP to promote tourism. Of that, $600,000 is remaining, and the Lafourche Parish Council recently approved a plan to spend the new $500,000 award. The grant was awarded competitively, and the parish is in the running for another $500,000 grant, Barrilleaux said. This week, the Parish Council approved allocating most of that money for a campaign of television commercials aimed at wooing travelers. The money will be used as an extension of the existing Dig In campaign. About $400,000 of the new money will be spent on 12-week television ad campaigns in Alexandria, Shreveport and Monroe; Dallas and Houston; Biloxi and Jackson, Miss.; Mobile, Ala.; and Pensacola, Fla., according to the contract with W.L. Gaiennie Co., a Houma marketing firm the parish hired.The ads will not focus on one offering but attempt to showcase charter fishing, swamp tours, restaurants, bed and breakfast establishments and other amenities. “We want to let as many people as possible know about what we have to offer in Lafourche Parish,” Barrilleaux said. “We want to appeal to as many interests as we can.” The money will also be used to design new websites for various nonprofit attractions such as the Larose Civic Center, the Center for Traditional Boat Building in Lockport, the Bayou Playhouse, the Cut Off Youth Center and the Laurel Valley Plantation, according to the contract.The Gaiennie Co. will also design a destination guide helping visitors find parish attractions.The plan took some heat from some parish councilmen who thought the money would be better spent on Internet advertising. “People can just skip right through television commercials nowadays,” said Councilman Jerry Lafont. Barrilleaux said television ads have performed well, and the money has previously been used for social media and Internet outreach. The parish used the original grant money to sponsor events, design websites for charter fishermen and produce advertising campaigns on television, radio and billboards, besides the Internet.“I was very surprised, going to New Orleans, the lack of knowledge people had about us,” Barrilleaux said. “So we thought that was very beneficial. Especially when we handed out info about the fairs and festivals. They were amazed we had all these things.”